A Heated Debate Between Two Charismatic Geniuses: A Cardinal Fan (Jeff Lung) and a Tiger Fan (Allen Krause)

Skip the Derby, Watch the Tour

This might keep me from being one of the cool kids, but I’m not sweatin’ it because I’ve been there in the flesh, watched it on T.V. and the truth is: the Home Run Derby blows.

It’s boring. It’s fabricated. It’s full of… nothing happening.

It’s made for T.V., that’s for sure, but it’s not baseball. It takes one small, often over hyped aspect of the game and blows it up to the point where it’s just senseless action with little at stake. Sure, I admit Josh Hamilton’s Yankee Stadium display was something otherworldly, but c’mon, that was just one time it was interesting. It’s usually just a bunch of mindless yakking from Chris Berman (another over hyped blah) peppered with the occasional home run and a bevy of unclever insurance ads.

Me? I’ll be watching Le Tour in anticipation of the actual All Star Game (also known as “Better than Christmas” at my house). And yes, I understand the Tour de France (and the entire sport of professional cycling) has a bigger PED problem now than baseball has ever had, thus possibly “tainting” the experience for unseasoned cycling fans, but let me tell you: if any event warrants blood doping, it’d be Le Tour.

I do not advocate it, but I get it. These guys are KILLING themselves, over three weeks, every single day, and if it were up to me, they could inject new blood into their own veins as much as they wanted.

Endurance events get me fired up. That’s one of the reasons why I love baseball so much: it’s a GRIND. Every day. In harsh conditions. Moving forward. But in baseball you rarely see the agony on the players’ faces.

In Le Tour, the agony starts at the gun and doesn’t reach its apex until the finish line is crossed. I can appreciate that, and will, much more than listening to obnoxious Chris Berman catchphrases while guys hammer batting practice fastballs over the wall in Kansas City.

4 Comments

Jeff-I’ve never been real big on the derby, either, but I have to admit I haven’t tried watching the tour, so can’t judge that. I can only imagine the physical shape those guys have to be in, though. Then compare them to Prince….(glad he’s doing well in it, though).
–Mike

Usually I’m right there with you, but this was the first Home Run Derby I’ve been excited about in years and I wound up enjoying it quite a lot. It would have been better if poor Mike Stanton were healthy and able to compete, but it was still a ton of fun…this time.
— Kristen

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